Perception vs. Reality: 'Google Fiber is done' (?)

By MATT VINCENT, Senior Editor --I was at a 5 year old's birthday party at the See Science Center in Manchester, NH, an interactive learning space "established to promote the understanding, enjoyment and achievements of science, technology, engineering and mathematics" among kids of all ages. Assembled amid a postmodern interior architecture of steel, glass and concrete used to retrofit historical mill buildings on the city's east side, the Center is gift of world-renowned scientist and inventor Dean Kamen, a local fellow known especially to kids for developing the FIRST program, a national school science competition focused on robotics engineering. The See Science Center is also the home of the Lego Millyard Project, known as "the largest permanent LEGO installation at minifigure scale in the world." The project represents Manchester's Amoskeag Millyard as it might have looked circa 1900. (The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was commonly recognized as the largest textile manufacturer in the world by 1915.)

The guy I was talking to at the 5-year old's party was an IP alarm, security and audiovisual (AV) systems integrator who'd recently been to a technical training workshop in Minneapolis. In the course of our shop-talk banter, he came out with the following observation: "Sounds like Google Fiber is about done."

Well...that's not exactly true. But I could appreciate his perception - apparently, we're all hearing the same rumblings in the media. Then too, AT&T and Google Fiber were seen recently wrangling over high-stakes urban fiber-optic networks in San Francisco. Meanwhile, across the country, today we hear again of Google Fiber wrangling with Comcast and AT&T in Tennessee over details of high-stakes broadband infrastructure and services.

Significantly, we've also heard in the news recently that Google Fiber is "going wireless." And while we shouldn't be surprised at that cozy contradiction in terms, the announcement of the broadband provider's burgeoning wide-area wireless internet services, in wake of some surging developments in mobile infrastructure technologies, has clearly made its mark -- until somehow my friend and I have arrived at this (as-yet, as-far-as-we-know) mistaken perception we're hashing over: that Google Fiber is "about done."

If that seems like a potential problem for Google Fiber, it's a definite plum for its competitors (whom, as we know, have been inclined to eavesdrop now and again). Because I don't correct my new pal: "Yeah, I've heard some stuff to that effect," is my rejoinder, because I have. Also, Google Fiber's nowhere near my house just outside of Manchester -- chalk it up to another case of out of sight, not much in mind. Heck, I can't even get FiOS where I live.

The setting of our conversation does sort of beg the question, though: Are high-speed wireless internet services destined to make outdoor fiber-optic line installations for broadband worthy of another large-scale LEGO exhibit, memorializing a fondly remembered past?

Fast-forward to the morning of this article's writing, in the bi-weekly masthead meeting for Cabling Installation & Maintenance (CI&M), where Steve, our web development specialist, is having trouble with the wireless connection. No worries, an RJ45-terminated pigtail is plucked from the pop-up connectivity bank in the conference room's table. "Ahhh...a CABLE," exults Steve, instantly and successfully attaching his PC to the LAN, to no small amount of chuckling -- everyone in this room can appreciate the irony.

"That's like lot of people who are forced to rely on wireless all the time -- they suddenly develop a great love of cabling," observes Patrick McLaughlin, chief editor of CI&M. "Yeah, wireless is great - until an online stalker gets into all your data," adds Ed Murphy, CI&M's national sales manager/associate publisher. OK, so maybe we're a little biased here. But it bears remembering, in network connectivity as in life: Perception vs. Reality is always an interesting rhetorical debate -- until the consequences of actual reality hit you in the face.

Search the Cabling Installation & Maintenance Buyer's Guide for companies, new products, press releases, and videos